Game of Thrones: "Walk of Punishment" Review

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April 14, 2013

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

"She kicked and wailed, the maid so fair, but he licked the honey from her hair."

Welp...

That'll teach Jaime to stick his neck, or wrist, out for someone. And now what's the Kingslayer to do without the hand he uses to slay kings? What a great scene that was too. Down went the carving knife! Not only did it provide us with this episode's big moment, but it also led us into a rather raucous, donnybrook version of the Westeros ballad "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" by The Hold Steady; the first ever rock song played over the end credits, and our first truly jarring musical cue. I'm sure opinions will be divided as to whether or not it was appropriate to stray from the traditional score, but I enjoyed it, as I applaud any opportunity to break from format. Still, fans of the books might still be sore about the Brave Companions/Bloody Mummers being cut from the show.

The scene where Jaime, both subtly and obviously, told the leader of Lord Bolton's hunters, Locke, that he'd be a rich man if he didn't defile Brienne and let Jaime return to his father was very moving. Small steps, you see. Jaime has gone from being loathsome in Season 1 to understandably smug in Season 2 to, well, this. Someone who would attempt to do a kindness for someone else. Someone he considered his enemy, no less. Granted, it was pretty much the least he could do. Just a few words that might not have even worked. Well, they didn't work for him anyhow. He probably should have let it be known that no one would get any gold if he was to be besmirched.

"Walk of Punishment," save for the parts in King's Landing, which seems to be the natural place where forward momentum takes a bit of a break these days, was an excellent episode that saw the return of Daenerys and dear, sweet, kindly old Craster. It also showed us that this season wasn't quite done introducing new characters as we kicked things off in Cat's old home of Riverrun (now in the opening), meeting her brother, Edmure, and her uncle, Brynden - aka "The Blackfish" - in the process. The opening bit featuring Edmure not being able to properly shoot a fire arrow onto his dead father's boat, and Blackfish swiping the bow away and doing it himself (not even looking back to see if the arrow hit its mark!) was a great way of setting up their relationship. And while I don't recall Uncle Edmure being such a lump in the books, I was happy with the portrayal of Blackfish, whose debut has been delayed for two seasons now.

Do I care about Cat mourning Hoster's death? Not really. In fact, seeing her shed so many tears for him, having never met him and also hearing all the stories about what a stubborn creep he was, got to be a little unnerving. Especially considering all the people who she's lost who we do care about. Meanwhile, it seems as though Robb's not doing too well, war-wise, this season now that the Tyrell's have aligned with the Lannisters.

"Winter is...is...dammit. Line!"

Sansa took the week off, but Arya had a small scene where we bid a fond farewell to Hot "I'm no Stark of Winterhell" Pie. Small scene. Not as much as I would have liked, but I enjoy how Arya, for all her roughness, seemed to be genuinely sad that Hot Pie was staying behind to bake hot pies. And the direwolf bread was adorable. I COULD TELL WHICH END WAS THE HEAD, HOT PIE!

It's tiny scenes like this where I wish the show would give us a few more Blackwater-style episodes per season. One that was, say, all Jon Snow. And then another for Arya or Dany. I know episode nine of this year, like last season, will follow the same Blackwater "one location, one event" story, but I could stand for another one. One interesting moment here, with Arya, was that she asked The Hound, "You remember the last time you were here?" Which I'm glad she brought up since there's no way I would have recognized the location from Season 1's "The Kingsroad" where The Hound killed Arya's butcher boy friend. But that has to be what she means, right? I mean, that's the whole reason The Hound's on her "list."

Jon Snow had a quick scene where he and Mance discovered that the White Walkers left all the horse heads in a spiral. But not a basic one, a shape that sort of looks like a spiral galaxy - with several arms ("Always the artists"). Then we leapt over to the Night's Watch where they, once again, took shelter with crusty ol' Craster. Gilly was in the midst of giving birth to her son/brother, giving us a good sense of time passed, and Craster was as genial as ever ("Tell her she can bite down on a rag or she can bite down on my fist"). Then he suggested that the more hungry members of the Watch eat Sam, carving off a bit of his fat body at a time, as needed. Grenn, Edd and Rast are there, but there also seems to be a new Crow roaming about whose name I don't know. Someone appropriately sleazy. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the Watch is mostly made up of criminals, both harmless and horrible.

Jaime unceremoniously losing his hand at the end gave us all a jump, but the action-y parts of this episode belonged to Theon; set free by the boy who was sweeping only to them be chased down, on horseback, by the men who were torturing him. Then, when it seemed as though the lead torturer was going to "f*** Theon into the dirt," the boy returned to kill them all with arrows. Having read the books, I do have an idea of what's going on, but the entire thing still isn't clear. Since Theon didn't appear in A Storm of Swords, this has all been written for the screen; his brutal escapades imagined for us so as to fill in a story that happened off-page.

Very quickly too, Melisandre is shown leaving Stannis, who's still unshaven and desperate to retaliate against, well, the world. But he's in no shape to fight (or father another shadow-ling) and so we got to see that even Red Priestesses of R'hllor will pack their s***, "trial separation"-style, when their man's not up to snuff. She does claim to be working on a spell though; one that requires a "King's blood," but not Stannis' blood. I dunno. If I were as fragile as Stannis right now I'd take that a bit personally.

Reservoir Dragons.

Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys, after some council from Jorah and Ser Barristan ("Is it 'we' already, Ser Barristan?"), decides to overlook her hatred of slavery and buy all 8,000 Unsullied because they can be specifically commanded not to kill innocent women and children during a war. I've gotta say, that's a big plus. Of course, it took a lifetime of unethical treatment to create an army that can behave ethically during battle. And Master Kraznys, although still calling Dany a "slut" with every other breath of his native tongue, can't resist a bargain and when she offers him her biggest dragon for the men, he accepts. Which was a good way to remind us, as viewers, of just how important and badass dragons are. I mean, we can only imagine the damage they can do when they're fully grown so it was cool to see how quickly Kraznys gave up every single member of his most prized stock of warriors for one that's not even adult-size.

Over in King's Landing, we were given, I believe, our first scene of the series that was played for pure comedy. Tyrion gifts his virginal squire Podrick with three, flexible whores ("Meereenese Knot" included) and he returns after his sexual adventure with a full bag of coins - the women having been so satisfied that they refused payment! From there, it was all about watching Tyrion and Bronn marvel at Podrick's prowess, pulling up chairs in order, ready to take notes. In fact this, and Tyrion's scene with Shae last week, are sort of giving us a lighter look into Tyrion's post-"Hand of the King" life. Are then all-together necessary? No. And an argument could certainly be made for, perhaps, even leaving Tyrion out of an entire episode. But I don't think the producers and HBO are ready to do that.

By the way, the "Meereensese Knot" is sort of a strange inside joke for book fans who also heavily follow George R. R. Martin press interviews. I like how the phrase, which Martin once used to describe a plot problem he was trying to solve in the fifth book, has been turned into a whore bending her crotch into Podrick's overwhelmed face. I see the parallels. In further King's Landing news, Tyrion's been made the new "Master of Coin," replacing Littlefinger who's off to The Eyrie to seduce Cat's sister - you know, the crazy lady - who lives there.

"Walk of Punishment" had some strong, surprising stuff from Jaime and Dany, while humorously giving Podrick a characteristic he never held in the books (considering he never held any striking characteristics in the books). This is the second episode in a row to end with a big Jaime/Brienne moment, which I'm fine with because I'm a huge fan of their storyline.

*To those those who have read the books, no spoilers in the comments regarding anything that might/will show up on TV in the future or you'll get booted. To those who haven't read the books, beware a-holes spoiling things without warning who haven't been flagged yet.*